| European
Association for Jewish Culture
Newsletter |
Cinema
By Gad Abitan
European Film Awards and the Cesars
On December 2, 2000, for the first time in Paris, the Academy of European Cinema, (27 countries, 1000 members)
made its awards during a gala evening at the National Theatre of Chaillot before an audience that included Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin, Mrs. Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Culture, and Mrs. Catherine Tasca,
the French Minister of Culture.
The only surprise of the European Awards was that Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri who were not among the
winners at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, were voted best screenwriters for Le goût des
autres.
This well deserved prize provided a foretaste of their victory during the 26th Cesar Awards, in 2001. Agnès
Jaoui's first film won the Cesar for the Best Film of the Year, the most coveted prize among French screenwriters
after the Hollywood Oscar for the Best Foreign Film, for which the French entry was, appropriately enough,
Le
goût des autres.
At the Movies
A documentary by Jacques Tarnero and
Bernard Cohn with archive material and
interviews with Claude Lanzman, Alain
Finkielkraut and Tahar Ben Jelloun, among
others, on the resurgence of anti-Semitism in
France, and the need to preserve the memory
of the Holocaust at a time when confusion
reigns.
The sequel to the saga follows in much the same
mould as the first film, with the same effective jokes.
This enormously satirical film dissects, in a high-spirited manner, the behaviour of the North African
Jews in Paris' garment district.
As soon as we hear
Charles Trenet singing
'Sweet France' at the
beginning of the film, we
know where we are: Vichy
France. The film uses
archives (anti-Jewish laws,
an exhibit on the Jews of
France, forbidden sites…)
that continue to haunt the
main character, Louba,
who is disturbed by the
persecution to which her
parents fell victim. A
demanding film.
Ronit Elkabetz, an Israeli film and cinema star who has been living in France for
the past 4 years, plays her best card this year in the theatre and on screen in Origine
Contrôlée, one of Zakia and Ahmed Bouhcaala's best works. This film has been a
big hit outside of France.
J.J. Annaud has effectively recreated the Battle of
Stalingrad. His egalitarian
handling of the two ideologies that he depicts remains somewhat uncomfortable,
however, and he seems to want to "repent" by portraying two attractive characters,
both of Jewish descent and both of whom sacrifice their lives. Tania, a woman
fighter, played by Rachel Weisz, dies while avenging her murdered parents, and a
brave popular commissar played by Joseph Fiennes, dies to preserve the morale of
his soldiers.
Autopsy of a Lie
La Vérité si je mens II ! (I Swear it's True II)
by Thomas Gilou Les fantômes de Louba (Louba's Ghosts)
Martine Dugowson with Elsa Zylberstein
Origine Contrôlée (Made in….)
by Zakia and Ahmed Bouchaala
Stalingrad, Enemy at the Gate
by Jean-Jacques Annaud, with Rachel Weisz and Joseph Fiennes
Requiem for a Dream
By Daren Aronofski
|
Sarah Goldfarb (the fabulous Ellen Burstyn) lives alone with her television as her sole companion. Harry, her only son, is a drug user before going through detox. The film's shocking images and frenetic rhythm manage to translate all the visions of horror experienced by a young drug addict seeking thrills and escape, as well as the private hell of an abusive Jewish mother. |
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Film Festivals
51st Berlin Film Festival
The Israeli-American film, Trembling Before God, a film dealing with homosexuality, won the Teddy for the
Best Documentary Film at the Berlinale. Trembling describes the lives of
Orthodox Jews caught between their
religious world and their sexual leanings.
Raphael Nadjari's second film (his first was The Shade, 1999, based
on Dostoyevsky) is based on an idea for an original screenplay
about three brothers, Abe, Ben, and Josh, who run a textile business
in Brooklyn where they live with their Yiddishe mama. When one
of the brothers is brutally killed in front of his younger brother, the
somewhat naïve Abe decides to make his own investigation. This
leads him to New York's seamy underside. This nightmarish film,
which was released in June 2001, is one of the revelations of the
Festival.
A family drama about a young woman
whose sister disappeared when she was a
baby. The film gives a poignant account
of the ongoing search for her which also
includes a modicum of humour. Love
Inventory was shown on ARTE (Channel
5) during the Festival.
23rd International Festival of Ethnographic and Sociological Films:
The theme of Jewishness is presented annually among the selections. This year's opening film,
Casting, is a
documentary in Yiddish by Emanuel Finkiel made during the shooting of Voyages.
A walk down memory lane of an old textile district in Vienna,
beginning on Marc Aurel Street, the main artery, with its café,
a large "stage where people are like the actors of a social
game," with its boutiques, including one which is still run by a
Holocaust survivor.
A sad acknowledgment of the persistence of
the extreme right. Michale Boganim visited
the old Jewish quarter of Odessa to collect the
accounts of three old women. His film was co-
produced by Great Britain and the Ukraine.
Gulya Mirzoeva's Shabbat (1990) stands out among the films in the retrospective on Central Asia. It gives an
extremely sensitive account of the painful departure of the Jews of Bukhara (Uzbekhistan), whose traditions
and religious practices recall those of Sephardic Jews.
Film
in Production
After many months of preparation, Roman Polanski began shooting The Pianist in Berlin on February 19th 2001.
The film is based on the autobiography of the Polish Jewish composer Vladislav Spilman who, along with his
family, was shut up in the Warsaw ghetto and escaped deportation thanks to a music-loving German officer.
Roman Polanski has long wanted to make this film, for obvious reasons. Born in Paris in 1933, Polanski left for
Poland at age three, with his parents. With the German occupation in 1939, his family found itself in the Warsaw
ghetto; his mother was murdered at Auschwitz.
Istvan Szabo is finishing his latest film, Taking Sides, about the ambiguity of the relationship between Wilhelm
Furtwangler, the German orchestra leader, and the Nazis. A musical symbol under Hitler, Furtwangler tried to
save a number of Jews, but was listed by the Americans during the period of
denazification. In this European co-
production, Szabo describes this pivotal moment in Furtwangler's life.
In early April, Eric Atlan began two months of shooting Pétain-Laval: Terminus
Sigmaringen. Costa Gavros is
preparing The Vicker, based on Rolm Hochmuth.
Ivan Attal is working on the post-production of his first feature-length film, My Wife is an Actress
starring his
wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Laurent Bouhnik (Zonzon) is due to start the shooting of his third film, based on
Stephan Zweig's Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman. I am Josh Polonski's Brother
by Raphaël Nadjari Love Inventory
(Réshimat' ahava)
by Israeli documentary film maker
David Fisher
Cinema of Reality, 9-18 March 2001 Homemad(e)
By Ruth Beckermann. Dust
By Michale Boganim Shabbat
By Gulya Mizzoeva
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